Bleach Fiction : Wild Hunt
by TheaBlackthorn
Summary: The Wild hunt runs to search for lost souls in the night, but what if the soul you wanted, was the one soul you couldn't have? Grimmjow/Ichigo
1. Chapter 1

Title: Wild Hunt  
Author: Theablackthorn  
Rating: NC-17  
Pairing: Grimmjow/Ichigo  
Warnings: BL

The room was cavernous, high ceiling, long stalactites spearing down to meet the ground forming thick columns along its length. They shone in the dim lighting, always appearing wet as mineral deposits continued to roll down from the roof, increasing their girth and strength over eons. The floor was a smooth dark sheet of black granite pocked with these great megaliths of raw stone. The facet's inside the dark rock twinkled, adding a lustre to the cool white tinged green flames lit in the open brazier's that littered the room, mimicking the dancing fairy lights over head.

At the far end of that space that echoed sound back and forth until you didn't know where one sound began and the other ended, sat a raised platform. Nine deep cut white marble steps rose from the ink black granite, topped by a wide dais that held an ancient relic of the Unseelie court - the Throne of Thorns.

The throne was a monstrous thing warped and twisted a dark thing that emanated power and stood taller than any man or elf. It was wide at the base, spiralling into the sky and growing ever thinner, the top disappearing into the recess of the ceiling where no light reached. The relics of the past contained great power and as time had weathered them, experience flavoured them and life coloured them they often garnered a sentience of their own.

This ancient throne was bound with layer upon layer of ancient thorny undergrowth, the long sharp thorns protruding like sharpened bones ready to spear then unwary. You could not tell if there was a true chair beneath the vines and it had been known to poison Kings and Queens. There is a legend that tells of them in long sonnets and winding tales of glorious passing - but in truth the throne had no need of such frippery. A carefully positioned thorn, tipped with matured poison was all it took. Death ran on silent, but swift feet.

And the throne - had all the time in the world.

Nobody had really figured out its odd sense of whimsy, mimicking the fae's own capricious nature after millennia. So many rulers had come and gone at its deadly behest - but there seemed no rhyme or reason that any could decipher. And sat on that poisoned pedestal was the current King of Underhill, ruler of the Unseelie court, Aizen.

The man was shrewd, secretive, charismatic and unyielding. Not someone to be crossed.

In the shadow of the throne, connected to a thick chain of deadly iron curling down to the ground and then up to a clasp its age blackened collar carved with ancient symbols, was a human male. He was young, no more than twenty ages of man. His skin was marred by blue/black bruises, blood and dirt. Locks of thick, dirty strawberry blond hair hung in his face and over his collar. Those once strong shoulders had drooped under the weight of ancient iron and the embattlement of time and circumstance.

The boy shifted, the chain trembling and clinking in the silence sounding like a gun rapport to Grimmjow's sharp ears. The shock of sound and motion caused him to blink slowly, gaze swiftly shifting back to the fae that sat upon the throne, a small smile curling cruel lips.

Shit. He'd been caught staring again.

Grimmjow didn't care about the bastard that sat all regal and royal on the throne, Aizen was a bastard of a King - but he was still King. What set his teeth on edge, his long nails biting into scared palms, was the way he treated that rat of a human beside him - his so called pet. Filthy little thing shouldn't even be here, shouldn't be sat beside the King, shouldn't really matter to Grimmjow at all - he was human, worthless and short lived.

And yet, he had caught and held Grimmjow's attention.

The boy had been kept in the dark for a year, withering with every month that passed without daylight. He was tugged along by that chain, kept at Aizen's side like a dog, beaten bloody, and yet there was still defiance in him. Grimmjow didn't know why the brat was here, didn't much care, but the few times those seeking eyes had lifted from the floor they had caught and held him fast. They were the colour of warm honey, but there was darkness there, a will that had not yet been broken. And Aizen had tried, had punished the human for meeting another's eyes, for doing anything but being the obedient dog he was commanded to be.

But in truth that was Grimmjow's role here, and it was one he revelled in, the chase, the find and the kill was what he lived for. The Wild Hunt ran for Aizen, but they were Grimmjow's and Aizen knew it. Grimmjow knew that it was likely the only reason he still lived after Aizen's pet had been caught staring at him. Their King was a jealous fae; no one knew much of him. He had come one day, stole the throne from the old King and brought his lackeys with him. The blind one and the jester whose smile was as cold as ice.

Grimmjow didn't much care for them either - but when this boy had appeared one day he'd been ensnared and the fascination had yet to wane.

_Ichigo._

He was an anomaly in this place of dark deals and malicious tricks. He was out of place, a bright spot that held the seeds of darkness. What Aizen kept him for was a mystery and yet deep in Grimmjow's gut, where he felt things before they really formed thoughts in his mind was a feeling that had stirred, bitten down and never left.

The boy was his - his prey, his to beat black and blue, his to taste and take.

Grimmjow at turns thrilled at the prospect and then crashed deep into the well of hatred and despair - a human. Why of all beasts one of them? He glanced at the male curled with his face toward the ground, took in the curve of his jaw through the thick thatch of matted hair, the way his ribs showed under yellowing bruises and he felt his gut clench, cock stir and his mouth water with need.

Mine.

Fuck - he was so damned screwed.

"Jaegerjaquez."

Grimmjow pulled his attention back from Ichigo once again. Not realising his head had turned and his gaze had been fixed on him once more.

Grimmjow sneered, "Yes." there was no show of respect, no affirmation of Aizen's station. Grimmjow hoped that blasted throne stabbed the bastard and he died in pain, his skin peeling from his muscle and bone and turning inside out.

A smile curled Grimmjow's lips at the screaming visage of Aizen in his mind, not paying enough attention to the obvious threat the man in that forsaken throne posed. But the boy knew, his head coming up quickly, eyes going wide and a rough, hoarse cry of denial slipped free drawing Grimmjow's attention like a moth to a flame, "No."

"Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, 6th of my Arrancar, Master of the Wild Hunt - Grind Resurrection Pantera." That voice spoke those words and Grimmjow watched as a cold smile curled thin lips and then pain seared his body from the inside out.

His eyes widened as it ripped through him, bones breaking and remaking, skin rippling then bleeding a pale white film that coated and hardened and felt like acid on his flesh. His gaze flickered frantically through the room, trying not to roll back as agony bloomed and unfurled inside him. His gaze landed and fixed on Ichigo, he watched as the boy leant back, eyes wide with horror and Grimmjow's gut wrenched, body shifting with a bone deep grinding that echoed out across the cavern. His gaze wrenched free of horror struck brown to settle on his Lord and Master, anger, pain and revenge a visceral thing boiling inside his half broken and twisting form. He grunted, growled and forced a single word past his stretching lips, the sound guttural and raw barely decipherable around sharpening teeth. "Death..." the word slipped from him as the Master of the hunt became the prey.


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

Grimmjow's eyes slammed shut, pain and savagery tore from his throat in a guttural howl. His body dropped to the floor, rippling and contorting into a new shape as he tried to breathe through the worst of it. It was the second time someone had forced Grimmjow's change, the first time seemed like eons ago. The fool had died because he hadn't had the sense to utilise Grimmjow's true name to do anything other than shift, all because Grimmjow had denied him that intimacy. And that shift had ended with anger and blood. Crimson filled Grimmjow's eyes as pain arched, pulsed and fused his body.

Aizen would pay for this, for the pain, the humiliation and the look of horror in that boy's eyes. Amidst the pain that racked Grimmjow's body he felt the insidious claws of shame sink deep into his gut. The feelings didn't last, shoved aside almost as quickly as they had formed. Grimmjow couldn't and wouldn't allow himself to wallow in self pity - that just wasn't who he was and he wouldn't let Aizen take that from him. He shoved these thoughts brutally aside, relaxing his body as best he could with bones cracking and lengthening, muscles pulling and shifting. He sank into the change, disappearing inside the only calm place in his mind as he let the waves of cramping muscles and twisting bones flow through him, changing the very fabric of his being but never his mind.

He could feel his body lengthen, thick slabs of muscles shifting, as his arms rotated in their sockets with a sick squelch, his kneecaps joining the cacophony of sounds rending the air as they snapped and bent backwards. His muzzle lengthened, teeth crowding in, growing longer, sharper, deadlier. The change took long minutes, leaving him vulnerable, but it steadily ebbed away, the last few parts of his body easing into familiar yet wholly different forms. His hair formed a ridge of sky blue mane ran along his spine, white fluid seeped from his pores fusing to form flexible white plates of armour all over his body. His tail sprang free from the base of his spine, thick clubbed tip lashing with his pent up anger as he settled into his new shape.

There was no familiar easing stretch; he had been forced into this shape, forced into long moments of vulnerability that he had always kept behind sealed doors. Piercing blue eyes lined with slashes of slightly darker blue opened and fixed on the King. Grimmjow took in the crumpled form of the boy beside the throne, those haunting honey coloured eyes closed, and though the boys breathing was even it stirred his anger into a conflagration that built in his belly and roared through his blood - _mine_! Grimmjow's lips parted, a feral sneer curling thin lips that stretched over sharp teeth, his words were a half growl, half shout, "You die!"

Grimmjow ran at Aizen, padded feet silent as he sprang across the room, hind legs bunching in preparation when he landed at the optimal distance from the throne and the figure that still sat completely at ease a top it. Cool, sizzling energy pooled in his belly, and as he breathed he channelled it, letting it chasing up his throat to zing across his tongue. The cold electrical charge filled his mouth, dancing across gums and tongue, tasting like ozone. Eyes' narrowing to slits minimising the effects of the white light on his vision he zeroed in on Aizen and that empty smile on his face...

The Cerro built going supernova in his mouth and just as he went to release it Aizen spoke. "Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, 6th of my Arrancar, Master of the Wild Hunt, you will run as far as your strength can take you, you will run until exhaustion drives you to your knees and there in the open, exposed to the eyes of the mortal world you will change and only then. For you will learn that you cannot and will not defy me, you will learn that though you are a useful asset, for now, you may not always be. You will be humiliated, degraded and you will obey."

That cold curve of lip made Grimmjow's stomach drop, eyes widening as a pulse of sheer will forced its way through him. He felt Aizen in the depth of his soul, the cruel, slithering darkness of crude oil over water, a blanket of true evil and for the first time he felt a lick of fear.

The Cerro that had been growing, spinning and churning with energy blinked out and as the brilliance of that light faded from sight leaving dark spots, after images, on his retinas he knew the emptiness that sat atop the throne and anger at weakened self, at the boy and at Aizen burned in his heart. He gave a coughing cry of challenge even as he was forced tooth and nail, by his own body, to turn and run. He would go as far and as fast as his Master commanded him, but he would return, he would drive that fucker into the dust if it was the last thing he did.

Grimmjow turned a shriek of sound echoing in the silent room as his claws tried to gain purchase against the marble floor, a futile attempt to overrule the command that echoed in his very soul. He caught sight of those honey brown eyes that were barely open and he saw fear, pain and anguish and it took him through the door at a dead run. He could deny Aizen, could fight him until the throne or some other threat took him, but he would not subject that boy, could not subject that boy, to the horror of what Aizen would do if he did not obey. Grimmjow's teeth ground hard, making his jaw creak as frustration and fury burned like dark coals inside him.

There had been a promise in those empty, calculating eyes - Aizen had found a weakness in him that even Grimmjow was only just coming to understand. And so he ran, as though his own hounds were at his heels because death chased him on dark wings.

88888

Minutes, hours, days, weeks Grimmjow wasn't certain how much time had passed, his body was tireless in its pursuit of nothing on the orders of a sociopathic fae King.

He had been commanded to run into exhaustion and as a hunter, his strength, stamina and ferocity had become legendary. He had become the leader of most infamous Unseelie band - the Wild Hunt. It was known by many names across the continents and Grimmjow had taken charge of it with tooth and claw as tradition dictated. That was almost a century ago.  
But right now his strength, rapid healing and stamina worked against him. The thick, leathery pads on his paws grew bloody and blistered only to heal again with new skin forming over stones and twigs that got stuck to the raw flesh. His throat was as barren of moisture as any desert, lips cracked, and tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. And yet, because there was still power in his limbs he continued onwards.

Grimmjow had flowed through fields, past hamlets, towns and cities and out the other side again. Rolling hills became thick forests and barren wastelands and still he ran as if there was no end to the Earth and he was destined to traverse its width forever. He had begun to wonder, in the hazy state between conscious mind and automatic motion, if the end of the Earth would be enough or if Aizen had meant for him to run himself into oblivion.


	3. Chapter 3

Part3

He woke from the darkness slowly, coming up for air through what felt like thick tar, breaching the surface and gasping for a clean breath. Grimmjow's body ached with every beat of his heart, feet and hands raw to the bone. He stared mutely at the shredded skin and muscles that looked like pureed meaty, blood licking up his forearms and shins were he'd been running exhaustively. He coughed as pain shot up from his extremities as what had been fingers spasmed stiffly. Grimmjow could feel his body's vain attempts to heal itself now that he was awake and that was enough to spur him into painful motion. If he healed now, the wounds open, raw and full of grit and muck, then he'd only have to reopen the flesh later and scour the mangled skin and muscles clean.

He knew he should be worrying about something. He knew in the back of his mind that there was someone close by, someone familiar and unwelcome. But they were far enough off that Grimmjow could drag himself to the freshwater pool his nose told him wasn't far away. The sweet clarity of that scent only just breaching the thick tang of copper that coated the insides of his nostrils and the back of his throat.

Grimmjow grunted with the strain of dragging his body across the blood streaked mud beneath him. His elbow's scraped raw as he tried not to use his hands and feet to shift the full weight of his body across what felt like the sharp edges of hardened lava slicing and sawing against his broken and bleeding skin. At the first kiss of cool relief as water rippled up his arms, lapping gently against bruised elbows then the protruding ribs in his chest he breathed deep and shifted forward, lips skinning back from his teeth in a feral silence. He levered himself into the water as best he could, breath forced from his lungs as he landed hard after each grinding pull of his body across the ground. As he strained and rolled into the blessed black, his scream was swallowed as the murky water closed over his head rushing down his parched throat and flooding his lungs as he writhed in abject agony.

The thought that maybe, just maybe, he might drown in the dark was short lived.  
The water closed in filling his lung cavity and pressing against broken and flayed skin and instinct, all that was left of the feral man, roared inside him. It pushed him back to the surface in a rush of limbs, forcing his body out onto the shore to land hard on bruised forearms as he choked and coughed up bile and water. He emptied his lungs with violent heaves that shook his body, water and bile from his spasming stomach burning up his throat and out his nose to pool on the ground.

The haze of death receded in small increments, piercing brown eyes filling his mind and haunting him like some poltergeist as he lay sprawled over his arms, legs still hanging in the water. Grimmjow hacked and coughed, his body trembling with fatigue, but his mind remained fixed on the young man he'd last seen chained to the false King's throne, he didn't know how long ago that was now. Time had become irrelevant in the miles he had traversed. The mere memory of that compulsion taunted his senses, the muscles in his feet tightening in response and pulling a quickly bitten off groan from his ragged throat. Grimmjow shuddered one last time, his body running on fumes as it tried to repair itself with as much haste as it's beleaguered form would allow.

A snap of branch drew his gaze much slower than was normal for him, but then the creature that filled his still dim vision didn't normally go around snapping twigs underfoot. Grimmjow tried to speak, his voice a rasp of sound like the wind through dried autumn leaves brittle and broken, "Ulquiorra."

That knowing green gaze judged him as the rail thin male stepped further into the clearing, his voice soft though it easily carried across the dead space between them, "You survived."

Grimmjow tried to muster a glare, a retort, something but though the fire in his gut responded his body was too far gone to muster much of anything. "I did."

If Ulquiorra wanted to do anything at all Grimmjow could do nothing at this point, his body was starved and thin, the muscle he'd had now barely covered his bones. He hadn't eaten, the compulsion to run, to never stop moving, a burn so bright it blinded and anything else, even breathing grew harder. Force of will alone had kept that functioning; anything else and he would be dead.

The fire in his belly roared to life but he was as weak as a kitten, he snorted derisively at his own weakness, disappointed that he could not endure more and fight the bastard hovering over him like a carrion crow. Grimmjow did not look away from the other predator in his space, just because his body was weak, his will was fierce and he would not bow before anyone - never again.

He watched as Ulquiorra cocked his head slightly to the left, a barely perceptible movement but Grimmjow's gaze was regaining its sharp focus and he caught the minute shift. That he wasn't dead yet told him something, his mind was coming back online with increasing alacrity as the fog of instinct receded to the back of his mind, awaiting it's next turn at the die. His hand clenched beneath him, the skin splitting and bleeding but left ignored in favour of the male in front of him.

"How long?"


End file.
